Questionnaires and Surveys

Writing your own survey?

Resources

Questionnaires and surveys are used to collect numeric data on attitudes and self-reported behaviour. In the main, closed questions should be used, supplemented with a small number of open questions where required. Different methods can be used to collect responses to questionnaires and some of their strengths and weaknesses are listed below.

Self-completion

Self-completion methods are the most common ways to collect data from questionnaires or surveys. These are best done with mainly closed questions.

Post

Internet/Online

Interviewer led

Interviewer led questionnaires or surveys are more commonly conducted where there are a greater number of open-ended questions. This helps to ensure the quality of responses in these answers as the interviewer can ask for more detail where required.

Face-to-face

Telephone

Advantages

Quick, simple and relatively cheap to administer

Closed questions are easy to collect, compare and analyse the results

Open questions can be used to collect more detailed information

Can collect the views of a large number and range of participants

Anonymity of questionnaires may improve response rate for sensitive questions

Anonymity of questionnaires may improve the response from shy individuals who may not respond to other collection methods

Minority groups can be represented fairly

Analysis of coded responses is relatively straightforward and can provide powerful statistical evidence for the effectiveness of the programme

Drawbacks

A low response rate can result in a biased sample (although this can be minimised)

Closed questions can restrict response categories and limit the depth of the evaluation